grand historical epic to urgent, teeming life.” Owen Matthews in The Oldie Book Choices for Summer Reading “The civil war which engulfed Russia from 1917 to 1921 was one of the most

RFE/RL: Do you think books like yours have helped reclaim the narrative of the Second World War to a certain extent, i.e., until the 1970s the “history” of the war in the anglophone world focused heavily on the Western Front, whereas the Eastern Front was not given the attention it deserved? Do Western attitudes to the war have to be readjusted somewhat?James, Trevor (2016). "The Historian". Historian (London). The Historical Association: 2. ISSN 0265-1076. LAURENCE REES: So even if Hilter hadn’t made the decision to split his forces, this was going to end badly? They did, however, have one complaint outstanding. My Russian publisher’s translator had changed “Ukrainian militiamen” to “Ukrainian nationalists”, which implicitly tars all Ukrainian nationalists with the reputation of having helped the SS Einsatzgruppen. But now my Russian publisher believes that it was right to change the word on the grounds that the militiamen were operating under the aegis of the OUN, the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists. This may seem a trivial spat over nomenclature, but it is a pertinent reminder of how powerful the grim legacy of the war remains three-quarters of a century on.

LAURENCE REES: And yet in the early days, Operation Blue was successful because the Germans were capturing enormous amounts of territory. But were they partly successful because the Russian technique was simply not to fight them? But I was also trying to show the total hypocrisy of German Nazi propaganda. There was the idea that somehow it was unfair to use superior weapons against them though they’d, of course, been using them against everybody else who was so much weaker.

According to an old Spanish proverb, “history is a common meadow in which everyone can make hay”. It has also long been a battleground for the perpetuation of nationalist myths and political attempts to reshape the past. In recent decades there have been encouraging developments, with many more international history conferences and foreign academics recruited by universities. All of this has helped to reduce the tendency of countries to view the past uniquely from their own patriotic perspectives. At the same time governments of all shades still long to impose their versions of the past through education, pressure on the media and if necessary outright censorship and even legislation. It was an extraordinary mixture of both courage and coercion. There were terrifying reports of the way soldiers were executed. Sometimes they weren’t even shot properly because the firing party was partly drunk or whatever it may have been. They would then dig themselves out of the shell hole into which their body had been thrown, reappear, and then be shot again. So there were some really terrible sides to it. Beevor: Well, I think Stalingrad has become a very important symbol. I hate to use the word iconic, but there has been an element of that, partly because it was one of the most desperate battles with inner-city, urban fighting. And I suppose that has an appeal for its cinematic potential and also in terms of popular culture with the whole question of snipers and all the rest of it. Mark No. No, of course not. What I mean is that the German supply lines were stretched. Zhukov countered and the siege was broken. And that’s all the story of Stalingrad.

Antony Beevor (24 April 2014). "Antony Beevor - Penguin Books USA". Penguin.com. Archived from the original on 13 August 2014 . Retrieved 23 June 2014. They know they are. Arnhem is a very good example of this. At the very end of August, there was a Minister in the Government in Exile in London who broadcast to Holland through the BBC, saying ‘Liberation is coming. Keep a diary.’ And that explains the quantity. From the Russian side, [Stalingrad] is the great symbol of Russian heroism and the great Soviet contribution to the defeat of the fascist beast, and all the rest of it. In that way, Russian propaganda differs very little from Soviet propaganda on that particular aspect.... I think the legacy on the German side was to see it much more as a tragedy. Almost every German book on the subject has the word “tragedy” somewhere in the subtitle. And, of course, from the German point of view it was a tragedy inflicted on the German people by Hitler through his obstinacy and his obsessions. And that it was a totally unnecessary defeat.

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There were still some old loyal Communists who were appalled at the whole situation. There was one dragon lady. She had no less than three portraits of Lenin in her office. Five Dials A superb re-telling. Beevor combines a soldier's understanding of war's realities with the narrative techniques of a novelist' Orlando Figes, Sunday Telegraph In the preface to Stalingrad you mention how important timing has been for you as a historian. A window was opened when you were there in Moscow in 1995 to research the book. Antony Beevor

So German paper keeps Russian history. Speaking of that relationship, I’d like to ask about the progression of your work. Did your Russian book lead organically to Berlin? Antony Beevor Entombed in their own bunkers". The Telegraph. London. 25 April 1998. Archived from the original on 27 March 2007. University of York honours 11 for their contribution to society". University of York . Retrieved 15 August 2023. sides.” NM in Telegraph Spain “Ahora leo con una especie de obstinación sombría Rusia: Revolución y guerra

Berlin: The Downfall 1945. London: Penguin, 2002. ISBN 978-0-670-03041-5 (Published as The Fall of Berlin 1945 in the U.S.) The struggle became a world war by proxy as Winston Churchill deployed weaponry and troops from the British empire, while armed forces from the United States, France, Italy, Japan, Poland and Czechoslovakia played rival parts. The incompatible White alliance of moderate socialists and reactionary monarchists stood little chance in the end against Trotsky’s Red Army and Lenin’s single-minded Communist dictatorship. Rather as the Ukrainians today are denounced as Nazis, so the Bolsheviks claimed that the sailors were led by tsarist officers. It was a lie. Many of the rebels were summarily executed. Before they were shot, writes Beevor, they shouted out: “Long live the world revolution!” It was on precisely that kind of imperishable belief that the Soviet communists traded with remarkable durability for more than 70 years. Beevor has captured the beginnings of the tragedy in mesmerising detail. The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War 1936–1939. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2006. ISBN 978-0-14-303765-1 We had to be very careful indeed, but it was the opportunity. I’d always thought that this was where the commissar’s files, the political department’s files were, and I always guessed that that was going to be where the good stuff would be. And it was. You can imagine my feeling of euphoria that evening thinking, ‘Are we really going to be able to carry on doing this?’